Motivation Quote by Ian St. John

The line lands like a scouse-eye roll turned into dialogue: not just disbelief, but a rejection of a whole modern habit in football - the grab for ownership. Ian St. John isn’t arguing tactics or silverware; he’s defending authenticity. Carragher and Gerrard aren’t “discoveries” or “signings” you can slap your name on. They’re homegrown symbols, boys who grew into men inside Liverpool’s walls. When someone tries to “take the credit,” St. John hears an insult to the club’s culture and to everyone who actually did the slow, unglamorous work of development.

The repetition and clipped phrasing do the heavy lifting. “Trying to take the credit…” sets up the crime. Then the detail - “since they were eight” - is the dagger. Eight is pre-fame, pre-money, pre-brand. It implies years of coaching, community, and identity that no late-arriving executive or manager can plausibly claim. “Can you believe it? I can’t” isn’t just emphasis; it’s performance. St. John is staging incredulity as a moral stance, inviting the listener to share the outrage and the laugh.

Context matters: in an era when clubs increasingly sell narratives as hard as they sell players, credit becomes currency. St. John, a voice from Liverpool’s older guard, calls that bluff. The subtext is tribal and protective: Liverpool’s legends aren’t portfolio items. They’re proof of a footballing ecosystem - and you don’t get to retroactively badge yourself as its author.